Devil in My Bed (33 page)

Now it was over. Chantal had left without paying her for her last month’s work and there was nothing left in her pockets but bits of snipped thread and extra buttons.

She couldn’t even sell the costumes, for Chantal had shredded them in a last fit of malice.

The manager left her to contemplate her short and miserable future. This was the only job she’d ever managed to get here in Brighton. No one wanted a girl without useful skills—no one but the factories.

Her chest felt heavy with the cold undeniable truth. She was going to have to go into the factories. She only hoped she would be one of the lucky few to someday come out.

All the dressers at the theater had horror stories to tell. Factory work was grueling and unhealthy. Girls froze at their machines in winter and fainted from the heat in summer. Cruel foremen made advances and refused to be refused. Machines lopped off fingers and slashed hands and there was no law that told the factory owners nay. Despite the grim conditions, as soon as one girl was abused past her ability to endure, another would be begging for the work.

It was a last resort, but there were many who were forced to take it out of desperation.

Better her than Evan. The children in the factories scarcely ever saw their next birthday once they walked through those doors. She swallowed hard at the thought.

No. She was stronger than her small frame and large eyes led people to believe. She was smart and careful. Besides, she told herself firmly, ignoring the cold ball of dread in her belly, if she could abide Chantal, she could tolerate anything!

When Colin at last drove the curricle into Brighton, he was exhausted and frustrated. Nevertheless, he nearly turned around and drove back to London at the sight of the sticky seaside crowds with their ludicrous swimming costumes and their whining, sunburned children.

“Summer in Brighton. What was I thinking?”

He’d been thinking that he would see the exquisite Chantal again, that’s what. Just the thought of her, so lovely, so sweet-tempered, so delicate, so very, very amorous when he had at last managed to worm his way past her modest and righteous morals—

He gave the distracted and weary horses a small stroke of the whip. Chantal awaits!

Except, as it turned out, she didn’t.

Colin blinked around him at the empty, shabby velvet seats and the peeling gilt of the stage border—not quite as magical during the day, was it?—then turned back to the stout fellow who claimed to be the theater manager. Melody stood between them, one arm wrapped around Colin’s shin, gazing about her in awe.

“She isn’t coming back?” Colin asked. “Are you sure?”

The man scowled. “Why do people keep saying that? She ain’t comin’ back, I don’t want her back and she ain’t welcome in any other theater in the city!” He threw up his hands in an Italianate manner and strode away muttering resentfully.

Colin’s knees felt ancient as he slowly lowered himself to sit on the edge of the deserted stage. At least the theater was dim and cool, a welcome respite from the dusty road. Melody promptly deposited herself in his lap and rested her head on his waistcoat.

“Uncle Colin, I’m tired. I wanna go back to Brown’s. I wanna see Maddie and Uncle Aidan and my room and the garden and . . .” She went to sleep quickly, as she always did. Melody only had two settings: go and stop.

Colin rather wanted to crawl somewhere and sleep himself. All this for nothing? The hours and hours on the road, the nondescript inns with greasy food that Melody refused to eat, the hundreds of exhaustively detailed decapitations?

For a moment he fervently wished he was scarcely three years old so he could fling himself down upon the stage and kick and scream in frustration.

“ No! I won’t go and ye can’t bloody make me!”

Colin looked up at the furious voice, automatically covering Melody’s ears from any further profanity.

His action was not so much to protect her innocence as to limit her extensive vocabulary. There had already been a few embarrassing moments on their journey so far.

From around the back of the stage came a small figure, stomping angrily in boots too large, swinging fists that were none too clean, and scowling with a face that had apparently had strawberry jam for breakfast. The person saw Colin watching and glared back belligerently.

“What ye starin’ at, ye posh bastard?”

Colin blinked at the miniature vulgarian in dismay. He couldn’t be more than twelve years of age, and a poorly grown twelve years at that. However, his large gray eyes showed the shadows of too many hardships and too few childish pleasures.

When had he begun to pay so much attention to children?

“I’m looking for Chantal Marchant,” he told the boy. Why did I share that? Really, to someone who didn’t understand the past that Colin and Chantal shared, for him to come looking for her with the road dust still on his clothing . . . well, it might come across as just a tad—

“Pathetic, that’s what!” The boy spat. Then he turned to face the direction he’d just come from. “There’s another fancy blighter lookin’ for Herself!” he yelled.

Colin turned to gaze at the shadows behind the half-drawn curtain. He saw a dark figure bend gracefully, deposit something on the floor of the stage, and then stretch her arms above her head like a dancer.

Against the backlight, he could see that she was slightly built, but there was no hiding the fact that her bosom was lush and full. What a lovely figure!

She lowered her arms and planted her hands on her hips. It only served to show off the narrow dimensions of her waist.

Really spectacular. Colin leaned sideways for a better view. Chantal?

A low, velvety voice came from that luscious shadow. “Leave the fancy blighter be, Evan. It ain’t his fault he’s an idiot.”

Colin was so distracted by the sensual richness of that voice that it took a long moment for him to realize that he’d been slighted. In addition, the speech patterns were of an uneducated woman of no social stature, i.e., “not for him.” He blinked wistfully at that momentary fantasy as it seeped away.

Still, he couldn’t help await her entrance into the light. If her face matched that body and that voice—!

Well, he simply might have to reassess his standards a bit.

She stepped into the dim daylight streaming in through the great double doors that stood open to the summery sea air. Colin felt a hit of disappointment. She wasn’t precisely unattractive . . . more like a bit plain. She had small, pointed features that did not fit his usual idea of beauty—though her large gray eyes were rather attractive.

They matched the boy’s eyes, in fact. Ah, her son, obviously. She must be older than he’d first thought.

She gazed back at him for a long moment with one eyebrow raised. He suddenly had the uncomfortable sensation that she somehow knew precisely what he’d been thinking about her.

Then she tossed a bundle to the boy. “Evan, we got no choice. Go ask the coach driver if he’ll let us sit on top for a shilling.”

Evan smirked. “We don’t got a shilling.”

She turned back to gaze speculatively at Colin. “We will.”

Evan, defeated at last, stomped his way from the theater, but not without a last resentful look at Colin.

The woman approached him and stood there, looking down at Melody in his lap. “You’re lucky,” she said, indicating Melody with her chin. “That age is easy.”

The very thought of it getting harder made Colin’s spine weaken just a bit. “Really?”

The woman gathered her full skirts and sat down next to him, letting her feet in their worn boots dangle next to his costly calfskin ones. “Oh, sure ’tis. Now she thinks ye hung the moon. Yer the champion.

When she gets a bit taller, she’ll figure out that ye don’t know what the hell yer doin’ and she’ll never respect ye again.”

Colin gazed down at the top of Melody’s head in alarm. “But what if I do know what I’m doing?”

“Won’t matter. Ye’ll never convince ’er of it.” She shrugged. It did interesting things to the supple burden within her bodice. Not that he was interested in her—but he breathed, didn’t he?

She swung her feet idly for a moment. “So . . .” Her tone was conversational. “Ye know Chantal.”

She was a bit too familiar for Colin’s taste. “Don’t you mean ‘Miss Marchant’? She was your employer, was she not?”

Her fingers tightened on the edge of the stage but her response was respectful. “Sorry, guv’nor. I just thought ye’d be wantin’ to know where Miss Marchant took off to.”

Ah. The gambit, at last. Well, he had shillings to spare if she had information. “What’ll it cost me?”

She slid him a sideways glance. “Five quid.”

He snorted. “Nice try.”

“Three, then.”

“Shillings or pounds?”

Her lips twisted in reluctant respect. “Shillings, then.”

Colin shrugged. It was only money and she looked like she needed it. “You have a bargain. Where is she?”

“Not ’till ye fork over.”

He reached into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew three shillings. He laid them out in his palm and showed them to her. “You can see I have them. I can see you have something to tell me. So tell me.”

Her eyebrows rose and she scoffed. “What, an’ ye walk away leavin’ me empty-handed?”

“Fine. I get three questions, then. I pay as you answer.”

She examined his face closely, then shrugged resentfully. “Right. May as well start cheating me then.”

Colin nodded, amused. She was a quirky little thing. “Why should I pay you for information? What makes you privy to Chantal’s business?”

“Prudence Filby, seamstress and dresser to Miss Chantal Marchant, at yer service.” She smiled and dipped her head elegantly. Damn, she was graceful. Too bad she was so plain. And common. And had the boy . . . well, he was here for Chantal, anyway.

He dropped one shilling into her outstretched palm. “See, I am a gentleman. I pay my debts.” She snorted at that. He went on. “Second question . . .” An image of the boy crossed his mind. He looked so much like his mother, it was hard to see the patrilineal contribution. “Who is Evan’s father?”

Wait, that wasn’t what he’d meant to ask!

She paled slightly and drew back. “Why’d ye want to know?”

He cleared his throat and forced himself not to redden. “I’m asking the questions here. Who fathered your son?”

Her eyes narrowed. “ ’E’s dead.”

“You’re a widow, then?” Why couldn’t he let this go? Perhaps it was Melody and how she’d been abandoned . . .

She gazed down at her very clean, very elderly boots. “I ain’t never been wed.”

An awkward silence stretched. “Right. None of my business.”

She held out her hand without looking at him. He dropped the shilling into it, feeling like a heel.

“Third question . . . where is Chantal now?”

She shrugged. “Can’t tell ye that. But I know who she run off with.”

“She ran away with some . . . man?” Colin felt a trickle of jealously. “Who?”

“Bertram Ardmore. Him with the pink weskits.”

The trickle became tidal wave. “Bertie Ardmore?” Melody shifted in his lap so he dropped his tone to an outraged whisper. “That sniveling pup?”

She shrugged and held out her hand. “Chantal said they looked beau’iful together.”

No longer interested in correcting her familiar manner, Colin seethed as he dropped the last shilling in her hand. “ ‘Purty Bertie.’ My God.”

The clever miss climbed lightly to her feet and grinned down at him. “Don’t take it so ’ard, guv’nor. I

’appen to know Chantal ain’t really Purty Bertie’s sort. Too womanly, if ye take my meaning.”

“I know.” He dropped his face into his hands. “That’s what makes it so mortifying!” Then he lifted his head. “She must not know. That’s wonderful. She’ll figure him out and be so disappointed—and there I shall be, on one knee—”

Her gaze turned cold. “Right. Off ye go, then.” She turned away to pick up her other bundle. “I’ve a coach to catch. There’s no work for me in Brighton. Evan and me are going to London.”

He blinked, remembering what she’d told her son. “You’re going to ride all the way to London on top of a mail coach? In the summer? You’ll roast!”

Gazing at the poor, small woman before him—a woman experienced with children—a woman who could help him find Chantal—Colin had a wonderful, marvelous, outstanding idea!

“Melody and I have to keep traveling in order to find Chantal, but we’ll end up in London. Why don’t you and your son come with us?”